


Circle This Old Flame

by chimneysmoke (recension)



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 09:58:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recension/pseuds/chimneysmoke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Katniss/Gale, post-Mockingjay, we've been lovers and strangers and friends who get angry / make mistakes and amends and brief moments of magic / we forgive and forget and give in to attraction / this whole thing depends on amnesia and madness"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circle This Old Flame

**Author's Note:**

> For the _Girl on Fire_ The Hunger Games LJ ficathon.
> 
> Original prompt: "Katniss/Gale, post-Mockingjay, we've been lovers and strangers and friends who get angry / make mistakes and amends and brief moments of magic / we forgive and forget and give in to attraction / this whole thing depends on amnesia and madness"

He shows up on her doorstep ten years too late.

He's wearing an officer's clothing of the Republic, but inside of the clothes he looks just the same. Standing on her front porch in the Victor's Village of District 12.

Her day-to-day melts as she takes him in. So many words unspoken between them, so much pain old and new. When he speaks, she notices the bow in his hand and the quiver over his shoulder. "I thought you might like to hunt. With me," he says. Out in the forest they are the same, the same team they always were. A point, or string of words making the other react with precision and skill. It makes her realize how much she's missed him.

Conversation is slow, but she tries her best as she plucks the fresh turkey they've just killed.

He tells her of his life in Two. Of Johanna and the baby.

She tells him of Peeta and her child. It goes unspoken how she once said she would never be a mother. Back at her house she offers him a room if he wants to spend the night, but he explains he has to be back on a train that evening. His business in Twelve, whatever it was, is over. He has to move on to Eleven by the morning.

Washing her hands of the turkey's blood and meadow clover she'd idly picked she realizes she doesn't want him to leave. They are back in Twelve, and Prim is still gone, but the pain has subsided. She wants him to stay, but he has to go, and she realizes this must be what it was like for him all those years ago.

She opens her mouth to make the offer again but his lips are on hers, his hands tugging her to him with burning force. A last kiss, as if he never thought he'd get the chance to have one. Katniss leans into the kiss, slowing his pace as she doesn't pull away. His hands lift her to the countertop next to the sink, her wet hands scrunching in his hair as she keeps his face pressed against hers.

His hands make no work at all of his own uniform, and he undresses her one handed but at a frenzied pace. Like they might get caught. They might.

He tugs her to the edge of the counter and presses upwards, inside of her for the first time after years of wanting nothing more. Buried inside of her is the only place he's ever wanted to be, and for the moments they risk it he can have his heaven.

She cups his jaw again, not kissing him though she brings her face close, sharing his breath as he thrusts unable to resist. She has never felt this way underneath Peeta, despite the need of hope and goodness her husband brings she has never felt fire like this. She wonders, for the first time, if she made the wrong choice all those years ago. Gale has changed, has softened. Fatherhood and duty have done that to him. He is not the hot head revolutionary she remembers.

Still, their circumstance is what it is and in minutes they have to end. He presses his mouth against the skin of her chest, tugging down her shirt to reveal her tanned skin, rocking his hips at a continually frenzied rate as he clings to her. His Catnip. He releases inside of her, and Katniss immediately wishes he hadn't. She is someone else's now. This is trouble enough. But he is howling in sublime pleasure, his eyes shut with unspoken emotion. He buries his face in her hair. She clings to him.

Gale lowers her to her feet, detaching himself as they each let their racing hearts return to normal. He apologizes. She asks him not to. She's not sure what he's sorry for.

He passes the Primrose bushes out front as he steps off her porch, leaving her at the doorway without a good-bye kiss. Their farewell took place inside, on the kitchen counter. There isn't much left to say.

"Primrose?" He asks, pointing with the bow he's brought. She nods. "Katniss," he finally says. "I need you to know that Beetee and I, we..."

"But you did," she finds the words hard to say. "In the end, what you did caused her death."

"We were just children," he says. Katniss never felt like a child, not since her father died. Not since the Hunger Games. Gale knows this, so she doesn't know why he tries to use it as an excuse. "Even you. Without you the war wouldn't have been like it was, Katniss."

She struggles to shrug. She's thought enough about the war. She doesn't need more haunting images to bound back to her. She doesn't need to blame herself any more than she already does. "I think you should go, Gale," she tells him, and she means it.

Gale nods shakily, looking off towards the Seam, then towards the woods, saying goodbye.

"Give my regards to Peeta, and the little one," he says finally towards her, waving his bow in the air. She nods, waves farewell, and locks the door when he's gone.


End file.
